Flame of the Desert by pandemonium_213

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Fanwork Notes

MEFA 2010 Adventure

 

Banner by Berithiel's Cats.  Thanks, Cat!

Probably AU GenFic Swap prompts: “Elrond” (Lackham/Amber) and “a desert in Valinor” (Darth Fingon).

PG-13 for substance abuse; those with arachnophobia are strongly cautioned that creatures of the eight-legged variety make pivotal appearances in this story. References pertaining to obscure canon characters may be found in End Notes.

Special thanks to Aeärwen2, Dawn Felagund, Drummerwench, Oshun, Randy_O (a.k.a. Thranduil Oropherion Redux), Russandol, Sanna/Hallbera and Surgical Steel for comments, grooming and nit-picking.

Fanwork Information

Summary:

After a celebration in Tavrobel at the famous House of a Hundred Chimneys, Gilfanon, one of the oldest of the Elves, proposes that he, Glorfindel and Elrond journey to the fabled Rock of Omar in the middle of the great desert of Valinor, where it is said that the Rock sings the echoes of the Ainulindalë and of lost life and love. Glorfindel procures a fabulous coach with most unusual beasts to draw it, and so the three fellows set off for an adventure in the desert where they meet Teleri who have embraced the desert and encounter a cagey Vanyarin ascetic who guides them to the Rock of Omar.

MEFA 2010 Winner: First Place; Genres: Adventure: General

Major Characters: Elrond, Gilfanon, Glorfindel

Major Relationships:

Artwork Type: No artwork type listed

Genre: Adventure

Challenges:

Rating: Teens

Warnings:

Chapters: 1 Word Count: 9, 018
Posted on 3 February 2010 Updated on 3 February 2010

This fanwork is complete.

Table of Contents

Flame of the Desert

Comments

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I'm going to be reading this in parts since my concentration abilities are very low lately. I hope that's alright. I really enjoy how you started this. I could almost feel the spider crawling and moving along Elrond's body. This was a really great way to start this out. I'm especially intruiged by the spider's description. Is it based off of a certain species? I really dig it. Thank godness Glorfindel came to the rescue. I was haf thinking it was a gigantic spider outside. I also enjoyed your descriptions of the clothing. I liked the interactions between Elrond and Glorfindel. I feel like I should be listening to the Lawrence of Arabia soundtrack for this. I look forward to reading more soon.

Thanks so much, Roisin, and really, please take your time.

Although the "flame of the desert" is a spider of Valinor, where there's bound to be some very odd critters, this spider is probably much like a tarantula, but a "land of Faerie" tarantula. :^)  

You might as well listen to the Lawrence of Arabia soundtrack because that's what was often in the background while I was writing this.  That and a few Abba tunes (Priscilla, Queen of the Desert).

Thanks again! 

 

How do I love it? Let me count the ways (or a few of them at least!).

-The desert and the big red rock. All my life I've wanted to see the Australian desert (and go down the Amazon on a smallish boat). Now I am starting to get worried I won't do either. The story was a satisfying teaser experience.

-encountering that ugly spider and letting it bite them (How many times have I done something I really did not want to do in some remote corner of the world after having been told I would regret it forever if I let the opportunity pass? True usually it has involved tasting something really vile and NOT letting a big hairy spider bite me and the payoff has really not been worth the hype in most cases! But I could really relate nonetheless.)

-not such I ever really believed in either Gilfanon or Elmo and you made them real full-blooded characters that I now feel like I know them.

-Elrond and Glorfindel are absolutely lovely. Crazy about them both the way you write them.

-Camel-mule-monster transport/beast of burden is absolutely fabulous. Hop right on boys, he won't bite. Great story element and selling them off in the end is a terrific twist!

-The part about Gilfanon getting hooked on the venom was believable and gently heartbreaking. Love the counterposition between comedy and poignancy throughout.

-The whole story is just so ridiculously, enviously creative. I'm trying very hard not to compare myself to this level of imagination. Keep telling myself I still can say something in my modest way!

-The stories in this Fic Swap! Wow! I won't even try to list my favorites; there are so many great ones.

 

First, the Fic Swap in general -- just fantastic!  Likewise, it's hard to pick favorites.  I'm more than pleased with those I received from Zhie and Tehta.

And thanks so much for the compliments on this adventure.  Valinor is such an unknown -- such a "perilous realm" -- that I let myself run wild with this.  When I discovered what one of the prompts was ("a desert in Valinor") and who requested it, well, then I let my imagination go. Elrond was the other prompt so it all clicked.  Obviously, one of the recipient's fics had an influence here as did "Lawrence of Arabia", "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert", and A Separate Reality by Carlos Castaneda.

I'm so glad Elrond and Glorfindel worked for you!  And I am really taken by Gilfanon now.  The old codger will very likely continue to appear in my 'verse.  Elmo just popped up out of the blue when I started thinking about bored Teleri deciding to wander the desert like an elvish Tuaerg tribe.

Thanks again and it's now back to The Elendilmir and a nascent and still amorphous Glorfindel fic. 

Hmmm, all right: "Lawrence of Arabia" mixed with "City Slickers" and a bit of "Dr. No" even (ok, I know it wasn't a spider there, but still...), Elrond suffering from arachnofobia, an adventurous Glorfindel, and finally Elmo and Gilfanon -- two obscure characters plucked from the farthest background and transported to the front row -- and look, they're completely fleshed out and fascinating. All this spiced up with sizzling humor and remarks such as this one An oath for brothers-of-the-road (*LMAO*), crazy Valar, spider-venom and liquor, and poking fun at canon in the imaginative way.

Where can I get more?

Brilliant stuff!

Thanks so much, Binka!  I had a blast writing this, and let my imagination roam far afield.  Valinor is such a tabula rasa that it allows for all sorts of oddities.   Gilfanon (darn him) has captured my interest so he may very well appear in future fics in the Pandë!verse.

"Where can I get more?"

Wherever Pandë!Fic® is sold! :^D

Elrond, Queen of the Desert!  (Given the casting in the movies, you knew I had to say that.)

This is a marvelously creative story; I love the glimpse of Aman we see here, so very different from the more familiar areas mentioned explicitly in the published Silm.  Whatever inspired the mutant camelids?  They were clever!  And I enjoyed the way you showed us Elves coping with the dullness of their lasting lives in rather outrageous ways, as they grow more desperate for novelty.

The lovely photos at the top of the story are a nice frosting on a very tasty fanfic cake.  Thanks!

My apologies, Ithilwen, for the terribly long time in replying to this, but my thanks are no less heartfelt that you enjoyed this story.  I freely admit it was tailored for Darth, who shares my penchant for imaginative and sometimes offbeat interpretations of Tolkien's legendarium.  So this was a lot of fun to write.  And ooooh, yes, "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" certainly had a strong influence here! :^D  Not to mention "Lawrence of Arabia" and Carlos Castaneda!

The mutant camelids were inspired in part by a few of the odd creatures Elrond observed in Númenor as written in Darth's "Anadûnai" here on the SWG. The incident with the dragon spider is taken directly from that so I am impinging on Darth-canon here. ;^)

Although the long-lived Elves may be more in tune with the "immortal lands", I still take Tolkien at his word that they are human (biologically the same race, to paraphrase JRRT), and the human mind will eventually seek the novel in an unending plain of sameness.

Thanks again!

I'm so glad I found this...must have missed it because of my hiatus.  My favorite part was Glorfindel's little private moment that Elrond saw.  This is like an Elven version of "Priscilla..." with all the matching characters!   As always, loved how you drew the characters and placed them in such an interesting setting. 

As for Gilfanon and his thousand chimneys?  Hmmmmm....   ;-)

"This is like an Elven version of "Priscilla..." with all the matching characters! "

Heh. You can blame Peter Jackson casting Hugo Weaving (Tick/"Mitzi") as Elrond.  Weaving is a wonderful actor, but when he had his first scene in PJ's Fellowship of the Ring, my son whispered, "Look, Mom!  It's Mitzi!"  I nearly lost in then in the theater.

"As for Gilfanon and his thousand chimneys?  Hmmmmm....   ;-)"

Chibi fodder?  :^D  Gilfanon is an interesting character in the Book of Lost Tales I.   I think he'll make another appearance in the Pandë!verse.

Thanks so much for reading and the compliments, Wavey!

Hi Pande,

Thought I'd leave my MEFA review here where it could do more good.

Even Paradise can become boring, requiring an outrageous adventure and this story certainly delivers. I thoroughly enjoyed Elrond, Glorfindel, and Gilfanon's romp in the desert as they embarked on the Quest of the Singing Rock of Omar. This story is like a technicolor dream road trip, mixing in the caravan of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert pulled by bizarre creatures, vibrant language, humor, unexpected twists, meetings with strange elves, and spiders that give psychedelic bites. The story opens in media res with a venomous spider perched on Elrond's chest. From there, we learn of the oath sworn by the three elves while deep in their cups and their decision to carry it out, nonetheless. As the story progresses, it becomes like a vision quest to the magical outer rim of Arda. The description of the singing rock was incredible. [Then he heard the first notes. They seeped into his bones rather than through his ears. Silver droplets of single flute rippled up his spine. Rills of a viol snaked up his arms, leaving violet trails in his muscles; the swift blue glimmerings of harps strummed across his ribs. His breath became the golden call of trumpets; his blood sounded with the crimson resonance of an organ’s pipes; and his heart beat with tympanic thunder. The melodies of his body harmonized with the melody of the Rock, which in turn joined the great music of Eä. . . .] As is usual with Pandemonium's stories, I am impressed with her imaginative ability to embroider whole new tapestries from Tolkien's threads. This is a unique and most enjoyable read and I agree with Glorfindel's profound understatement. [“By the Three Fathers, that was an experience!” Glorfindel croaked.]

 

Copy of my MEFA review:

This is a glorious romp, with a serious side to it. Pandemonium has taken Fourth-Age Valinor and stirred a plenitude of eclectic elements into the mix, some of which are easier to identify than others: Uluru aka Ayers Rock, of course (there's an illustration to prove it), and probably the Tuareg, perhaps myths such as Hephaestus cast down from Olympus, etc. - and obviously"Priscilla, Queen of the Desert", explicitly alluded to in the author's responses on the SWG site (although maybe Cinderella's pumpkin got a look-in in the matter of the vehicle as well). All this is cross-fertilized with references to the obscurer parts of Tolkien's mythology; characters such as Gilfanon, Elmo and Omar Amillo do not often get an outing. On one level, this is a quest that starts out as a drunken spree and turns into an absurd expedition that takes everyone's dignity down a notch, especially Elrond's. (Pandemonium is decidedly not an adherent of the Peter Jackson / Orlando Bloom theory that elves never raise a sweat, get dirty or stink.) On the other hand, this absurd expedition does seem to lead to some kind of cosmic revelation and, if the procedure initiating it is more than a little suspect, that does not necessarily invalidate it - nor does the inevitable discovery that you can't take such things home with you and things tend to go very wrong in various ways if you try. Underlying that is the acute observation that the perpetual prosperity of Valinor might be increasingly difficult to bear the longer it endures. Apart from this, there are plenty of witty details here, including an explanation of Cirdan's beard that doesn't actually mention Cirdan. Perhaps an even more remarkable achievement, though, is how Pandemonium, in the midst of all this rollicking fun, discreetly manages to make us feel a moment of pity for Melkor's pain at his banishment from Arda.

In two words: poor Elrond.

Let's hope the spiders were cute like jumping spiders or Mexican tarantulas. If they looked like oversized house spiders, then ew, yikes and yucks.

I knew that Salmar-the-hooligan was too much of the bizarroid kind to be trusted...